Service Card
issued by Count Tadeusz
to brother Henryk Grocholski

Plenipotentiary
of the Red Cross
With the VI Army
On June 23, 1920
…………. 98

The bearer of this card, Henryk Grocholski, an official with the Plenipotentiary of the P.T. Red Cross with the 6th Army, is delegated from Płoskirów to Warsaw to transport in eight wagons 90 refugees from Podolia, their belongings, and items belonging to the Red Cross.

Civil and military authorities are to provide him with assistance and protection during the journey, as well as to the persons entrusted to him.

Plenipotentiary of the Red Cross
With the VI Army
Grocholski

Refugee Disaster in Volhynia, July 5-6, 1920
Death of the Plenipotentiary of the Polish Red Cross Society VI Army Count Tadeusz (junior) Grocholski, son of Count Tadeusz and Zofia née Zamoyski

(WP.) The Płoskirów – Wołoczyska railway line was attacked by Budienny’s Cavalry on the night of July 5 to 6. Almost simultaneously, a Bolshevik regiment, divided into three detachments, attacked Czarny Ostrów, Płoskirów, and the group fleeing from the derailed train.

Chief Commissioner Mińkiewicz departed from Płoskirów at 12:40. The Polish Staff Treasury, guarded by a small escort, was also on this train. The Ukrainian general staff was traveling with a convoy of 30 Cossacks, also carrying their treasury.

The train derailment occurred between 2-3 a.m., 3-4 kilometers before Czarny Ostrów. Initially, the train was not fired upon, allowing Ukrainian Colonel Myszkowski to organize patrols and deploy the detachment in skirmish order. The Ukrainians, having a telephone apparatus, communicated with the 6th Army staff in Płoskirów, requesting assistance. Indeed, a locomotive was sent, but it could only take a few wagons due to nearby artillery fire.

Assuming larger Bolshevik forces were in the area, some remained on the train, while a small group decided to proceed to Czarny Ostrów under Colonel Myszkowski’s command. Mr. Mińkiewicz went with this group; everyone in the departing detachment received weapons. One of the first to be wounded was the liaison officer with the chief commissioner, Świrski. In Czarny Ostrów, the refugees joined with the lancers who had been resisting Budienny’s detachments and now retreated together across the field and track, leading the civilian population in skirmish order.

The retreat was very difficult, with most wounded found between Czarny Ostrów and Narkiewicze. The number of dead found is 46; almost all were cut down with sabers and evidently finished off, most mutilated. Among others, the grotesquely mutilated body of Mr. Tadeusz Grocholski from Strzyżawka was found. He was evidently tortured and set on fire alive, his body stripped, with a bloodied uniform lying nearby. Many bodies were not recognized due to the terrible mutilation of faces. Many had ears and noses cut off. Three Sisters of Mercy were also found, stripped of their underwear, with breasts cut off and numerous cuts and gunshot wounds, evidently finished off. Their bodies, like others, were partially covered with soil by local peasants who robbed the dead. Colonel Myszkowski was severely wounded and carried away by his Cossacks but died the next day.

One of the bodies, with a face terribly beaten with a rifle butt and saber cuts, could have been the body of Mr. Minkiewicz’s secretary – Mr. Bolesławski, as evidenced by the light hair color and a gray “haki” vest, as he had nothing else on him.

Great presence of mind was shown by a Sister of Mercy named “Hala,” fighting with a rifle and encouraging others. It is not known if she survived, as only 6 female bodies have been found so far.

Further along, the detachment encountered reinforcements coming from Wołoczyska, led by Colonel “Jarosz.” Upon returning to the site of the disaster, it was found that the train had been looted by the local population summoned by the Bolsheviks for plunder. No bodies were found on the train as those who remained partially hid with local peasants and partially returned to Płoskirów, unmolested. The Polish staff treasury, located in one of the boxes, was broken into, and small change was taken and scattered in the field. The Bolshevik detachment was strictly controlled; the officer ordered the marks to be taken, and no one dared to protest. Another box was found in the village with a peasant. Bolshevik soldiers initially rushed to the vodka in the train; when the officer noticed, he scolded them, smashed all the bottles, shouting: “What are you drinking, there’s a war here.” Obedient Cossacks mounted their horses and rode off.

The Bolshevik detachment had a regimental banner, two light cannons, and one “howitzer.” Women on horseback, dressed in men’s clothing, in red Phrygian caps, were with the detachment. According to an account from an uhlan officer, they stood in a group with the staff during the attack on Czarny Ostrów.

The names of the following deceased have been established: Tadeusz Grocholski, artillery captain Bema, private Kazimierz Sojecki, and liaison officer Swinski. According to eyewitness testimony, Mr. Józef Starorypiński also perished. Chief Commissioner Antoni Minkiewicz, along with several others, was taken prisoner. The Bolshevik detachment boasted along the way that they had a Polish minister among the captives. More precise information about the Commissioner has not been obtained.

Honor to the Fallen
Warsaw Courier, July 30, 1920

The flower of the finest youth perishes for the country on the field of glory in bloody battles, sacrificing with full awareness, giving their lives for our better future. The hand of Providence distinguishes and selects among millions of Poles those who generously pay the sacred debt to the Homeland with knightly glory.

Not only those who stood on dangerous posts perish. Often, the least exposed to enemy bullets fall, but certainly – the best…

The names of these best sons of the Homeland, covered in mourning, will remain forever engraved in the memory of society. For the grieving hearts of the closest family, the awareness of the sacrifice undoubtedly curbs the internal despair. But it is impossible to soothe the heart’s pain when this best son, this most beloved husband, this tenderest Father, this dearest brother dies a martyr’s death, heinously tortured by a rampaging horde of bandits.

On July 5, in the vicinity of Płoskirów, the Red Cross plenipotentiary, Count Tadeusz Grocholski, along with three Sisters of Mercy from the Red Cross hospital, was murdered in a terrible manner by Budienny’s Cavalry. We have now received a second sad news: about the crime committed on July 18 against the hospital staff in Radziwiłłów.

A cry of internal rebellion should rightly engulf the entire society, or rather, the entire population in which elementary feelings of justice have not yet died. On Monday, August 2, at 11 a.m., a funeral service will be held at the Garrison Church on Długa Street for the repose of the souls of these victims of an unprecedented crime.

Let the entire civilized world learn about the unprecedented monstrous violation of the most elementary rights of humanity, not to mention international ones, which specially protect the Red Cross and hospitals.

Let the temple be filled to the brim with a crowd feeling the entire horror and atrocity of these crimes, and let it be a painful cry to God and a loud protest to the entire Western Europe.

Władysław Tyszkiewicz
(from Landwarów)